Since I was a child i have always been freaked out by fish - don't know why, but I am. Tonight as I was browsing the website of a restaurant in Sorrento, Italy, I ran into this, and I screamed when I saw it. What a wuss!!!

OK, I'll admit my weakness: I can eat bouncy little lambies and cute little veals, as long as I take care not to dwell on their origins. But I have a really hard time with bunny rabbit. I know it's trendy and gormay, and I can gag down a bite if I have to. But it's just too darn close to my cat buddies.

OK, I'll admit my weakness: I can eat bouncy little lambies and cute little veals, as long as I take care not to dwell on their origins. But I have a really hard time with bunny rabbit. I know it's trendy and gormay, and I can gag down a bite if I have to. But it's just too darn close to my cat buddies.

I am not a rabbit eater, either. I do not have any problems with lamb or veal - veal is deeeeeelishhhhh!!!!

My friends make fun of me with the fish heads, though. Blech!!!! Those big eyes and slimy skin. Ugh!!!

Milk or cold, white sauces dribbling out of the corner of someone's mouth. Cold, white sauces or salad dressings that have been exposed to air so long the surface yellows. Creamy salad dressings on wet lettuce.

Boiled okra.

Organ meats.

Borscht with sour cream stirred throughout. Food should not be that color.

Foam.

My wine shopping and I have never had a problem. Just a perpetual race between the bankruptcy court and Hell.--Rogov

Maybe it was my training as a biologist, but I don't get freaked out by unusual food. Except once. I ordered "Tete du Porq" in a fancy French restaurant once. I was expecting braised cheek meat in a sauce, and that indeed was what the dish was--except that the animal's brain, lightly poached, was perched on top of the pile of meat, completely intact, and with the spinal cord artistically draped onto the plate. This could have starred in its own B-grade science fiction horror movie. My first thought was "oh my God!", and my second was "mad pig disease".

That one freaked me out. I hadn't expected the "tete" part to be quite that literal. The dish was delicious, except the brains had a texture I didn't care for too much.

Paul Winalski wrote:That fish on the right has been drinking too much coffee.

Maybe it was my training as a biologist, but I don't get freaked out by unusual food. Except once. I ordered "Tete du Porq" in a fancy Frech restaurant once. I was expecting braised cheek meat in a sauce, and that indeed was what the dish was--except that the animal's brain, lightly poached, was perched on top of the pile of meat, completely intact, and with the spinal cord artistically draped onto the plate. This could have starred in its own B-grade science fiction horror movie. My first thought was "oh my God!", and my second was "mad pig disease".

That one freaked me out. I hadn't expected the "tete" part to be quite that literal. The dish was delicious, except the brains had a texture I didn't care for too much.

I guess it's what you grow up with too. It was always a special treat to order black cod out at a Cantonese restaurant. Some restaurants will bring it by the table in the net for the adults to approve of the size and freshness before it is cooked and served. (head and tail intact of course). Same with fresh prawns, crab, or lobster.

Although I grew up with fish, prawns, and all sorts of edible live swimmers we seldom had meat at home (vegan dad). So when I was in highschool, I was grossed out at a friend's BBQ by the slabs of steaks and burger patties. The same friend would come to Chinese dinners with my family and loved everything BUT was equally grossed out by the whole fish!

Sonia Hambleton wrote:I guess it's what you grow up with too. It was always a special treat to order black cod out at a Cantonese restaurant. Some restaurants will bring it by the table in the net for the adults to approve of the size and freshness before it is cooked and served. (head and tail intact of course).

I was recently in Boston's Chinatown stocking up on ingredients that I can't get in New Hampshire supermarkets. The woman in front of me had purchased fresh fish. Emphasis on the fresh. There was a delay in the check-out line because the fish kept flopping around so much it couldn't be weighed.

Sonia Hambleton wrote:I guess it's what you grow up with too. It was always a special treat to order black cod out at a Cantonese restaurant. Some restaurants will bring it by the table in the net for the adults to approve of the size and freshness before it is cooked and served. (head and tail intact of course).

I was recently in Boston's Chinatown stocking up on ingredients that I can't get in New Hampshire supermarkets. The woman in front of me had purchased fresh fish. Emphasis on the fresh. There was a delay in the check-out line because the fish kept flopping around so much it couldn't be weighed.

I suppose it all depends on what you're culturally used to. I can imagine someone used to taking fish fresh from the pond and killing it on the spot saying, "Can you imagine? Over there they buy fish in the shops that's actually been dead for hours or days! How gross!"

I sometimes wonder what people from the 19th century would think if they were transported to a modern supermarket. No doubt they'd marvel at the presence of fresh produce in the dead of winter, but waxed vegetables would probably baffle them--why, even during season, doesn't anything smell like it ought to? And I don't know what they'd make of "pasteurized process cheese food" extruded from an aerosol can.

Yes -for some reason I'd have no problem with selecting a live fish, eyes and all, at the market, but have a hard time with a slab of meat that looks nothing like a whole cow, except for the blood. The ferrous smell gets to me - reminds me of the smell of a hemodialysis clinic and just grosses me out.

My dad's mom used to kill poultry in the yard in Hong Kong. This was before I was born, but my older sister still won't eat poultry because of her memory of the process.

Don't get me started on the biology background - rat and cat dissections put me off handling raw chicken for almost a decade!

There's not much I can think of that I've run across since college that really freaked me out. I had tete de veau at a restaurant in Paris last year. That dish included a lovely piece of brain, neatly bisected at the corpus callosum. I didn't eat it (couldn't get past that mad cow thing) but I can't say it freaked me out. (I half expected to get the whole head split in half with an eye staring at me, so I was a bit relieved when the brain was the worst of it. )

I guess the food that most freaked me out was a sandwich containing one slice of a brown meat-like product and one slice of fluorescent orange cheese product, on one piece of white Wonder-like bread and one piece of off-white (verging on brown) Wonder-like bread. As served in the bus station in Indio, California. At midnight. While I was enduring a bad case of strep throat and a fever that was hovering in the 102-103 °F range.

I've had horsemeat sausages. The izikaya that offered horsemeat sushi was out of it the day I was there....

I think I would not have eaten a locust. They were being presented by some chefs during the last swarming.

A friend of mine tells a story of being served cuy, a South American delicacy. The next day, they went to another village where they were guests of honor and were therefore served... cuy, this time with the head on... and the feet.... (It's guinea pig.)

My Dad tells a story of eating dog in a steakhouse in Korea during the war.

I think I read in some magazine that the most disgusting food is the partially-developed duck embryo still in the shell... partly gooey, partly crunchy... not sure I'd go there, either.

Stay out of the Far East. A business associate once took me to a restaurant where they took a live fish and wrapped its heads in a wet towel. Then they quickly deep fried the body keeping the head in the cool wet towel. When the fish arrived on my plate, it was really fresh. The gills continued to suck for air while I dined on the lower part.

Visiting the famous Snake Market in Taipei, my friend introduced me to squeezed snake. Large live snakes hanging from their tails clamped in a clip are slit lengthwise with a knife and then with the hand squeezed from the tail to the head so that the inner juices and "whatnot" flow into a glass of brandy, which you then drink for virility. I got it down as fast as possible and didn't breath anymore than necessary.

Stay out of the Far East. A business associate once took me to a restaurant where they took a live fish and wrapped its heads in a wet towel. Then they quickly deep fried the body keeping the head in the cool wet towel. When the fish arrived on my plate, it was really fresh. The gills continued to suck for air while I dined on the lower part.

Visiting the famous Snake Market in Taipei, my friend introduced me to squeezed snake. Large live snakes hanging from their tails clamped in a clip are slit lengthwise with a knife and then with the hand squeezed from the tail to the head so that the inner juices and "whatnot" flow into a glass of brandy, which you then drink for virility. I got it down as fast as possible and didn't breath anymore than necessary.

er...Enjoy!

Covert

I think these two stories top anything I have ever heard! And you drank the brandy? ????????????

Most of the stuff is the snake bile which supposedly gives strength and virility.
I'll consume most anything. I think I lost my sqemishment after biology lab and the mouse guillotine. I've never had balut, however, and don't know if I'd want to try.